Godel, Escher, Bach : an Eternal Golden Braid

Oh my God, Oh my God ! How am I going to describe the joy, rather ecstasy that I am going through when reading Pulitzer Prize Winner Godel, Escher, Bach : an Eternal Golden Braid (a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the sprit of Lewis Carroll) by Douglas R. Hofstadter. I just finished about 75 pages (it has about 700 and odd pages) and each page is worth million thoughts ! Hofstadter sharply draws the line between the realm of reason and the realm of thought. It is definitely a MUST READ for people interested in Philosophy, Meta-mathematics, Logic, Art and Music. Never again you will admire Escher after reading this book. Never again you'll praise Godel for his works. You'll adore them. I don't know anything about Bach but this book doesn't require the reader to know much about him (so far). I particularly like the author's view of this book. It goes like this. "But finally I realized that to me, Godel, Escher and Bach were only shadows cast in different directions by some central solid essence. I tried to reconstruct the central object, and came up with this book". This book is worth reading several times and I am sure one can never exhaust it. As John.L.Casti, Nature puts it, "In some ways, GEB, is an entire humanistic education between the covers of a single book. So, for my next visit to a desert island, give me sun, sand, water and GEB, and I'll live happily ever after". Its kinda a bliss that I am going through when reading this book. Though I should warn you that it is a pretty heavy dose of Philosophy and Logic. Finally, I would like to put Martin Gardner views on this book.
"Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. [This] is such a work."